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Richard R. Halderman

Wabash, IN | Distinguished Ag Alumni: 2009

Decades before Richard R. Halderman
was born, the family name was already
well-known for farm management
achievements. The legacy began when
his grandfather Howard stepped up to
manage foreclosed farms during the
Great Depression. It continued under his
father Robert, and now under the third
generation, brothers Howard and Richard.
“Dad loved nothing more than figuring
out how to set Howard and me up with the
business and let us run,” Richard says.
After earning an agricultural
economics degree at Purdue in 1991,
Richard spent about a year at a Florida
dairy before joining the family businesses,
Halderman Farm Management Service
Inc. and Halderman Real Estate Services
Inc. in Wabash, Indiana.
Today, he co-owns those businesses
with this father and brother. He also
heads Halderman clients Teays River
Investments and Agricultural Real Estate
Investors, whose combined assets
include some 70,000 acres of U.S. crop
and livestock production operations
valued at more than $200 million. He is
also on the board of International
Farmland Holdings, which has invested
more than $600 million in Argentine,
Brazilian, and Uruguayan farmland
topping 650,000 acres.
“The challenge draws me, and so does
the paradox of agriculture,” Halderman
says. He’s also drawn by the people he
works with. “We go a thousand miles an
hour. We see change occurring.
Economically, it’s been quite interesting,
sure. I do what I love and the money
happens to be a byproduct of that.”
Halderman’s spare time is focused on
religious activities and his family—his
wife Kelli and their home-schooled
children, Jackie and Jeremiah.
Together, they enjoy renting villas on
tropic islands, where they boat, water
ski, or scuba dive, or visiting Colorado
for snow skiing vacations. They also
like to read and compete in minitriathlons.
“Most of my professors would cringe at this:
only fifty percent of my education was
in the classroom. The other fifty percent was in the
inter-fraternity council, Mortarboard, Iron Key,
Old Masters and being an Ag Ambassador.”